The Ethiopian Daughter of our hearts: 2/1/09

Monday, February 23, 2009

Waiting...

So what do you do when the wait feels long? That is my question of the moment. We are so willing to see the next step in this journey. What age will she be and what circumstances will surround her being relinquished into an orphanage? What will she look like and when can we begin to wrap our minds and hearts around bringing her here into our world? I think being so in love with my three boys makes wanting to know "her" even that much more difficult. I never knew that this process would feel so deep, so overwhelming, so exciting. There are so many unknowns right now and waiting on the Nepali government feels hard for a control freak such as me. Some days I want to shout from the rooftop, "hurry it up already!" But then I quietly come back to my center and I realize that this timing is not about me, it is not about what season will be easiest for us, it's not even about how will we do this when we have to leave three children behind. It is not about which of my sisters will be able to go with us and it is not about the gap that feels to be growing between my youngest Owen and his soon to be sister. This is about faith... It is about adding a child into our family when the timing is right and when all things happen in the manner in which they should. We do not get to control this. Somewhere halfway around the world there is a pregnant woman who wonders how she will care for the child that grows in her body. Or maybe there is a child already born who has nobody to hold and love her, nobody to guide and respect her as she grows up. Maybe there is a grandmother who struggles to feed the five children she has been left to care for. We do not get to know when and how just yet but the story is unfolding and sometime soon God will show us his perfect plan.

Monday, February 16, 2009

The Latest

Well I tried to post one of the weekly updates we receive from our agency just to make everyone laugh.It didn't quite work. Perhaps we are the only ones who can truly appreciate the humor. This process and Nepal as an adoptive country is just so darn confusing.

After submitting our dossier we were then told to begin working on the I 600 A(also known as the I171H) form which goes to the Department of Homeland Security where we will be approved or denied the ability to obtain a Visa to bring our Nepali daughter to the US. Interestingly enough, I have a friend going through the same process with a different agency who completed this form months ago before the dossier was submitted. So we went to work getting the birth certificates and marriage license and all the other goodies required to get the form submitted. It is now in and again we wait!

We now begin to wonder how long we wait before we begin to "get ready?" How does one get ready when the timeline feels a bit endless? We have a very strong faith that this journey to our daughter is in God's hands, but it is so hard to find the patience and the courage to wait. We are all getting eager to just see a picture of who she is. The next step should be a referral from our agency which will include learning who she is and being able to view her health records. After receiving the referral we have two weeks to have an international pediatrician review her records and then we must accept or decline. How odd that statement is. She is waiting for a family and we are waiting for her. We cannot wait to accept her with arms and hearts wide open.

Korah- Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

During our recent visit to Ethiopia I felt very called to the village of Korah in Addis Ababa Ethiopia. There have been numerous rumblings lately about the tremendous need to help the children of Korah who are growing up in and around the local trash dump. The village was established 75 years ago as a place to send people with leprosy who were said to be cursed. Now there is a 3rd generation of people living in Korah with nearly 100,000 suffering from such things as leprosy, HIV, misc disease and of course malnutrition. There are many children of Korah who have been forced to live and work at the trash dump in hopes of finding food and possible items to sell in Korah's center of town. With the start of the Great Hope Church in Korah and the building of a shelter, along with the ministry of local Sammy Liben and Sumer Yates, there is now a feeding program and a sponsorship program in place to rescue the forgotten children of Korah and send them to boarding school where they can escape the horror of the conditions of living and working in a large trash dump. For more information please visit: www.help4korah.blogspot.com or www.p61.org where you can learn more about how you or your organization can help the people and the children of Korah. Please send me a message or email Erin Allen at erin@p61.org to request sponsorship information. I will soon be posting the photos of my day recently spent in Korah. I must tell you it was life changing and beyond anything I have ever done to stretch, change and rearrange myself. God helped me to help the people who I met. Much of what I could offer was nothing more than the snap of my camera or a warm touch or an inviting smile. The needs in Korah are beyond our wildest imagination yet God is over Korah and there is already amazing work being done. I invite you to view the following videos to learn more about the beauty and the needs of Korah's people.

Why adopt from Ethiopia?

It's a fair question and one that people ask frequently. It goes hand in hand with "Why didn't you guys choose to adopt domestically?" Let me explain...

Ethiopia is deep in the midst of ongoing poverty, disease and famine. Ethiopia is the fourth poorest nation in the world with nearly 5 million orphans struggling every day to survive. Nearly 2 million people are infected with HIV and many children will watch their parents die of the disease. One in every ten children do not make it to their first birthday and one in six die before their fifth birthday. Obviously such statistics are staggering and there is no doubt that the country of Ethiopia has a great need to allow families in who are eligible and willing to rescue and adopt their orphaned children.

This journey for us has taken many winding turns. It is the true nature of adoption and in all honesty it is just something you just get used to. For us adoption began as a two fold feeling of wanting to add another child to our family and also feeling God nudging us to help where the need was the greatest. We began researching the high need category right here in the USA. There are numerous differences between a first world (so to speak) and a third world country. Here in the US we have a foster care system in place where children can be placed until adopted. We do not have the same institutionalized orphanages which are often developmentally detrimental to many children. In many countries there is nothing in place to help the orphaned child but the orphanages. Thank God they exist or children would have absolutely nowhere to survive. It also became increasingly obvious that a birthmother in this country would have to select us and we would have to become increasingly more comfortable with an "open adoption." We were not certain that was the right path for our family so we began the lengthy research into high needs countries where we fit the criteria to adopt a female. Believe it or not with three bio boys we did not fit every countries criteria. This adoption stuff is a bit crazy but you have to follow the laws. :) Nepal and Ethiopia both immediately began to tug at our hearts. We knew that adopting from either country felt right. We began with Nepal but soon realized the it was Ethiopia where we belonged all along. We made a country switch-a-roo and here we are today.

A couple of other tidbits about Ethiopia that made us feel such a strong connection. Ethiopians value and love their children and their families. That is not always the case. Many countries throughout the world place little or no value in children. In fact many countries are totally unwilling to deal with the orphan crisis at all. Ethiopia is one of just a handful of African nations currently to allow the adoption of children. Ethiopia has followed the Hague Adoption Convention and places great importance on the welfare of their children. Ethiopia's government has also acted with integrity so far in complying with timelines and requirements that are reasonable for all parties, agency, adoptive family and the child. This is a good thing as many countries have lengthening timelines or have closed their doors to international adoption altogether.

So Ethiopia has stolen our hearts. Their needs are so great but the passion to live appears to be greater. I am beginning to understand what some say when they say, I need Africa more than Africa needs me. I am feeling that and sometimes I cannot even verbalize why. We need Ethiopia. We need to be stretched and have our hearts broken for the orphan, the widow and the least, lost and lonely. With two trips now ahead we continue to prayerfully ask God to make us vessels. Use us to be the hands and feet of Jesus in places where people and children need us most.

I want to also say that there is no right or wrong when it comes to following you heart into the land of adoption. It's just like anything we do in life. We have all been given the powerful gifts of choices and free will. Adopting a child no matter where he or she is from is a very personal and spiritual journey. If you are being lead to seek adoption for you and or your family- just do it! How can one human being ever regret such an endeavor!

{Our Family}

We are a family of five who are feeling the call to add another sweet bundle of joy to our world. Our hearts and our minds are carrying another child who is currently in Ethiopia. She is thousands of miles away yet we know she is meant to round out our family! She has already been chosen for us as we have been chosen for her. We wait with great anticipation, with excitement and prayers. With three boys ages 9, 7 and 5 there is rarely a dull or quiet moment around here and we are all eager to open our hearts to the beautiful little one we will call Ava.

We are following God's lead as we make our way through all the hoops to Ethiopia and back with the daughter and sister of our hearts.

{Ethiopian Facts}

*There are approximately 5 million orphans in a country less than twice the size of the state of Texas.
*Only 24% of households have access to safe drinking water
*One in ten children die before their first birthday.
*In the 1980's one million Ethiopians died of starvation
*Half the children in Ethiopia will never attend school; 88% will never attend secondary school
*Ethiopia’s doctor to children ratio is 1 to 24,000
*Children and family are honored above all else
*Between 60-150 million kids live on the streets
*82% of the population survives on less than 1 dollar a day
*1 in 3 people are HIV+, the average life expectancy is 37

{Adoption Timeline}

08/28/10 OUr daughter is HOME!
6/28/10 Our first travel court date!
6/16/10 OUR FILE IS FINALLY OPEN!
5/14/10 We are told we will be the first official family to travel twice to Ethiopia.
5/12/10 All referral paperwork in. Now we wait for court date.
5/5/10 We get our referral call!
4/8/10 We are number 7 on the girl's list
3/5/10 We are number 10 on the girl's list.
2/7/10 We are number 13 on the girl's list
01/07/10 We are number 17 on the girl's list.
12/06/09 We move down the list to number 21.
10/15/09 We move down the list to number 37.
09/15/09 We begin as number 44 on the wait list for a girl.
09/09/09 We are on the ETHIOPIA List! Yippee!
08/27/09 Our Ethiopia dossier is mailed in. Now we can finally get on the wait list!
07/27/09 had our social worker here again for the redo home study UGH!
07/18/09 receive dossier binder and begin the paperchase once again
07/03/09 Agency Paperwork mailed to begin the process again but this time in Ethiopia!
07/01/09 Termination of Our Dossier in Nepal
06/29/09 I contact our agency to discuss our options in changing programs. It was a difficult day to give up on the Nepal dream.
01/23/09 All dossier documents submitted to our agency to be mailed to Nepal
01/20/09 Nepal home study is complete!
08/10/08 We sign initial contracts to adopt through AGCI.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Waiting...

Monday, February 16, 2009

The Latest

Into Our Arms Forever!

Meeting Ava during our first trip to Ethiopia

Korah

Korah- Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

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Love this...

Hannah's Hope Orphanage- Ethiopia

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{Our Family}

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